In Pursuit of Madness

Barefoot, graceful steps could not be heard against the rough dirt roads under the pale light of the full moon. The steps were quick and delicate as the city of Athens slept, as if the slightest misstep would wake the entire population. As she practically flew through the city with her godlike speed, Melinoe knew there would be at least one mortal awake, undoubtedly with a small light burning as he worked, waiting for her presence. She dashed through the streets, knowing the path to the small home well considering she traveled it every night, where he was always waiting. Melinoe was at a point in her eternal life where she had decided to shirk her duties as Princess of the Underworld. She didn't want to be trained to rule, she didn't want to drive people to madness and compose nightmares; she wanted to run free through the streets of cities and fall in to the embrace of a mortal man. Then, one day as she wandered through the streets of Athens she bumped into him.

His name was Lydos, and he was a young painter. She observed him, and in that moment he stood tall and lean with taught muscles stretched over his body with deep, richly dark hair that waved like the ocean in the afternoon breeze and eyes that were a warm, soft brown. He was startled when she bumped into him, so much so that the pottery he'd been holding fell to the ground with an almighty crash. Her clear green eyes looked up at this man who had so rudely invaded her thoughts by dropping the urn. Didn't he know that with the snap of her fingers she could have him writhing on the ground in a mass of insanity?

No, he didn't, she realized after a moment. Melinoe was disguised as just another mortal woman as she wandered, not wanting to reveal herself lest someone beg for her patronage. Even if it was just madness and nightmares that she controlled, Melinoe was a Goddess and most mortals would give an arm and a leg for her patronage. It was ironic, that although she didn't want to give her patronage to some artist she ended up giving it to him, along with her heart. Now she rushed to meet him with unearthly speed, her feet barely skimming the ground.

As she had predicted, Lydos was waiting for her with an oil lamp burning on his small work table. He had black, watery clay called slip that he was using to delicately paint an incomplete urn. The pottery still needed to be fired in order to be finished, but the potter wanted Lydos to paint it first so he had gone to the potters house a few days previously and picked up the barely dry piece before getting to work on decorating it. Now he was burning the oil close to his work while he waited for her to come to him. She stopped, having finally reached his window and gave a soft smile. Melinoe leaned into the window, the curtains were drawn wide and light was pouring into the street, to watch him work. The flame from the lamp flickered causing her shadow to dance in the road but she took no notice of it. She wasn't disguised today, and a breeze was blowing her flowing, inky curls into her face but she let them be, enraptured by the mortal bent over his work in the night. Her eyes were focused on his hands, almost too elegant to belong to a mortal, let alone a man. She supposed her cousin, Apollo, could have had something to do with his hands considering Apollo was the God in charge of the arts. Melinoe almost snorted at the thought, she had often had run-ins with her mighty cousin, and although he was apt to follow his responsibilities, unlike herself, he was flighty and often indulging in carnal pleasures with Muses. In fact, the more she thought of it, he couldn't be more unlike his twin sister, her cousin Artemis. They were polar opposites, not unlike her own parents. She shifted slightly, kicking a small pebble over yet oblivious to the quiet noise it made, and continued to stare at her lover. It wasn't until his brown eyes looked up to meet her pale green ones that she realized there had even been a disturbance. He smiled at her from his seat as the table.

"Hello," she murmured quietly. It was music to his ears, like a sweet bronze bell ringing in the breeze. However, it was nothing in comparison to the delicious peals of laughter she would occasionally let out.

"Spying on me?" he teased gently.

"Oh you know," she smirked. "Gathering information on your latest masterpiece so I can sell it to your competitors."

He let out a small chuckle at her cheeky remark."Well, I'm not sure how good of a price you'll fetch, there aren't many people vying after my work."

"I highly doubt that Lydos." She replied, giving him a soft smile.

"Are you going to come in? It must be cold out there."

"It makes no real difference to me, you know I can't feel it." She told him. "But I suppose, if I must..." she grinned like a cat and slipped herself deftly through the window, which was just big enough for her to climb through if she maneuvered her lithe body properly. Lydos stood up from his spot at the table and moved toward her, wrapping her in his arms and effectively planting a kiss on her lips in one swift movement.

"Come," he said, after they broke apart for air. "We can go to the other room. The rest of my work can wait until morning." He held out his hand to her. Melinoe accepted it and followed him into his bedchamber where, for several hours they lost themselves to each other.

Later, as Lydos slept, Melinoe stared at him with wonder. It seemed like only yesterday when he was fuming with her when she made him drop his latest piece from the potter, still unblemished, that he'd now have to pay for himself. Plus do the work on another piece. She stopped for a moment, to organize her thoughts, thinking on how long it it had actually been.

Eight years.

It had been eight years since the first time she had met Lydos. The thought made her shudder, had it really been that long? He didn't look like he was aging at all, and she knew that she wasn't. Her body wasn't frozen in time, it could change, but she was immortal and it would take far longer than eight years for even the slightest change in her age to appear. Melinoe could see it though, if she looked closely at Lydos. The crease in his forehead hadn't always been that prominent, there were laugh lines starting to form on his face; even in his sleep, where he was undisturbed and calm, she could see the signs of aging. She knew that there would come a day, she wasn't sure how soon, where he would cross over the River Styx with Charon and there would be no way to bring him back. She spent the next few hours, as night bled into morning, stroking his face gently with her lighter than air fingers, and silently asking her family to keep him safe for as long as possible.

Light poured into to room where Lydos slept as he awoke, expecting to be alone. But there she was, dressed in the somber, flowing black dress with her midnight curls framing her face. She wasn't looking at him, but Melinoe sat next to him on the bed. She seemed to be staring off in the distance at the rising sun, thinking perhaps of her cousin and the early hours he kept. Lydos propped himself up on his elbow and brought his body closer to her, leaning in to place a gentle line of kisses on her shoulder.

She turned to look at him, and it was then that he could see the tears in her eyes.

"Melinoe," he whispered her name softly, "what is it?"

She allowed one tear to fall as she reached out to touch the more obvious signs of age as he worried.

"Dear one," she murmured. "You are aging, and I am not."

Confusion darted across his face. "What of it?" he asked.

"Lydos..." Melinoe hesitated, unsure of how to continue. "There will come a day, sweet Lydos, where your soul will pass into the Underworld, realm of my Father, and my cousin's chariot will cease to rise in your life. For me however, I will see every rising and setting that dear Apollo brings. The life of a mortal, in comparison to a God, is like the blink of an eye; but immortality without you will be..." she gestured with her hands, lost for the word she was looking for. Agony? Hell? Cruel? all of these and so many more came to her mind, but there was no one word that described it. Her hands fell into her lap and she looked down at the delicate, porcelain skin that was stretched across them.

Lydos leaned forward and took her face in his hands. "Oh my darling Godess, don't you know? In life you die twice." He told her. "Once when your heart stops, and a second time when your name is last spoken. As long as you live to speak my name I shall never truly die."

She cupped her hands around his and pulled them off of her face. Tears were streaming down her face when she looked up at him.

"Kardiá mou," she whispered, calling him her heart. "I cannot continue to hold you back. You must find a wife and have children, you must create your own legacy, and I cannot continue to hold on to you while there are things that you need. I must leave you."

Hurt flashed across his face as she spoke. "I don't want you to leave," he croaked out, finding his voice. She brought one hand to brush a few locks of his hair.

"I don't want to leave," Melinoe gave him a sad smile. "But you need this."

She stood, still holding his face, and placed one last, tender kiss on his forehead.

"I love you." He whispered brokenly, but when Lydos brought his eyes up to meet hers, she was gone. He closed his eyes, and he could still see her. No matter where he went he could see her. Lydos saw her in his bed, at his window, in front of him at the market. He thought she was all he could think about on the days he was going to see her, but now he had no other thoughts. Were those soft bells her voice? Are those her clear peals of laughter? Did he see a girl with those same green eyes? What was her sweet scent doing wafting here? Could those be her luscious inky curls?

For a while it was too much. He couldn't eat or sleep, he couldn't paint without picking up the brush and seeing her and reaching out to paint her perfect features. Lydos would shake his head, put down the brush, and close his eyes. But Melinoe would be there too, waiting for him. She would be smiling and laughing, gesturing for him to come to her.

Once he thought he was going mad, he speculated that perhaps he had angered her in some unknown way and she had decided that his fate would be to be driven to madness by the mere memory of her. Even if that was the case, he prayed every night to her, to her father, to her mother, to her cousins and uncles and to any God that he thought would listen. He prayed, that she would return to him once more.